NES/SNES Repros on eBay Australia again...

Apart from the fact that he's breaking the law, I don't think he's doing anything unfair. This is a very hardcore, knowledgable forum, and even most people here wouldn't be able to reproduce a localised patched ROM into a working cart, as well as create convincing boxes and instructions.

It's not something I'd pay for, as any of those games I'd play on PSP emu, or via a flash card if I weanted to. But for people that want to play an original cart and like having quirky stuff in their collection, it's good value.

I would think that these would actually go up in price to. Look at bootlegs like SMW on the Megadrive, Top Fighter (selling for 12800Y in Japan atm) and to a lesser extent games like Toy Story 4. If there are only a few of these CONVINCING Secret of Mana 2 curiosities about with boxes and instructions, I can see collectors in 10 years or so going crazy for them.

Even if you can just get someone in the know to use the dumped ROM to make you a working cart, the box and instructions will be the signature of this particular pirate/bootleg, and if only a handful have been made by the original artist, $300AU could actually be a worthwhile investment.

 

1) Get ROM dump
2) Program EEPROM
3) Solder into donor cart
4) Print box
5) PROFIT!

It's a pretty simple thing to do.

If this guy were HONEST about what he was doing that would be one thing (see the NWC repros).

But this is an asshole that is doing his level best to deceive people into thinking he is selling legit carts (going so far as to use NOA characters in his ad). Charging the premium price helps reinforce that belief.

He's nothing more than a simple pirate hoping to rip off unsuspecting buyers.

-hl718

 

Let's be honest- how many people who are looking for this stuff and have $300 to spend will NOT know that Seiken Densetsu 3/Chrono Trigger etc were never released as PAL games?

I think everyone knows what they are getting here. The premium price is because, frankly, where else could one get a boxed PAL Secret of Mana 2 in English to play on their regular original machine?

Also, if he explained exactly what was going on, his auctions would be removed fairly quickly. When selling 'grey market' stuff on Ebay, being vague is the only way to sell- ask anyone who has sold multicarts, unlicensed games, custom machines, converters etc.

 

You pretty much said it. Though I find that there's always room to put somewhere a hint that it's not an official product, so as to not appear to be completely deceiving anyone. Using words like "custom" or "unofficial" I wouldn't think would set off many alarms on eBay, and those are usually the words I think that work best for repros and pirates, respectively,

 

I always thought selling repros on ebay was not allowed. I know multicarts are. I once tried to sell my Tristar/Super 8 converter on ebay, but they took it off. It's not an illegal device at all.

 

The rules for eBay are just like the laws in most countries. It's not illegal unless you get caught. I listed an Action Replay and a FreeLoader disc and had the auctions pulled because I mentioned the ability to play imports.

EBay is just trying to look after it's own ass.

 

You can find him on oztion now too

http://www.oztion.com.au/buy/auctio...ype3=&type4=&type5=&s=&pcode=&dis=0&freepost=

There's someone selling Wildcard DX2 64 for SNES, $300 AUD

I'd love to get one of those but the price is too dear for me

 

he's been trying to sell those for a while (or he has a lot of stock), I remember seeing them in late 2008 on oztion.

 

I agree, To someone like me, being able to play something as if it was native to that country when it wasn't on an actual cart with labeling and everything is pretty cool.

If I had the money and tools to do it, i'd do it myself for games like Star Ocean or other Japanese games that didn't come out in the west. (and of course i'd own copies of the original Japanese games as well)

 

How long til I get his auctions taken down from Oztion?

eBay ones went away pretty quick, and I actually spoke to someone from eBay that wasn't an automatic response and they are looking into it, but it hasn't stopped him from relisting.

 

head to tototek, they have lots of copier at good prices!

 

Or buy a PowerPAK from Retrousb.com to play SNES games. I have both NES and SNES PowerPAKs. They're excellent products. Better than any Copier. I can't believe the most people spend on the Super WildCard DXs. They are no better than the much cheap Game Doctor SFs that have been around all this time. And now with the PowerPAK and other flash carts it makes the older copiers less appealing and makes the SWCDX look even more crazy when people try to sell it for insane prices.

 

thanks karsten and MottZilla

will check totek out
i was looking at getting a PowerPAK before but no superfx support
it does seem like a great product at an affordable price

JackAz!: not sure, i have reported people in the past.. they seem to get away with a lot more on oztion.. i saw people selling nds flash carts preloaded with hundreds of games, and to my surprise selling super nintendo, n64 and arcade roms
couldn't turn a blind eye on that

 

No copier supports SuperFX or any other special chip besides DSP-1. DSP-1 is only supported because the way it works makes it easy to piggy back it into place. However chips like Super FX and SA-1 actually have direct access to the MaskROM, and just the way it's designed you can't put it into play like DSP-1. You'd have to have the chip built into the copier/flash cartridge which is not feasible since you can't make Super FX chips or other chips unless you were to clone the chip and put it onto and FPGA which seems very unlikely since the number of games using any one special chip are very low. So it's not a big return on your investment.

 

i see, thanks for clearing that up for me :thumbsup:

 

If you really want to teach him a lesson for scamming and being untruthful with the shady auctions do the following:

1) Buy one of the bootleg games.
2) Pay with PayPal.
3) When it shows up, file a claim with PayPal because you were sent a counterfit item.

PayPal doesn't like it when people sell bootlegs and use it for payment processing.

I wouldn't normally advocate this for most cases, but this guy simply isn't being honest with what he's selling.

If he were out there openly advertising "HEY, THESE ARE HOMEMADE REPROS!" then I'd say, let him be and do his thing. But he's not. He's presenting them as if they are rare official releases and he's gouging people by pricing them as if they ARE rare official releases and not just homemade repros with a freely available ROM flashed to them.

Dishonest sellers need to suck it. Destroy the scammers.

-hl718